Infants aren't biased toward fearful faces.

Grossmann's argument for the "fearful ape hypothesis" rests on an incomplete review of infant responses to emotional faces. An alternate interpretation of the literature argues the opposite, that an early preference for happy faces predicts cooperative learning. Questions remain as to whether infants can interpret affect from faces, limiting the conclusion that any "fear bias" means the infant is fearful.

Valence, arousal, and dominance ratings for facial stimuli.

A total of 1,363 images from seven sets of facial stimuli were normed using the self-assessment manikin procedure. Each participant provided valence, arousal, and dominance ratings for 120-130 faces displaying various emotional expressions (e.g.

The effect of vertical and horizontal symmetry on memory for tactile patterns in late blind individuals.

Visual stimuli that exhibit vertical symmetry are easier to remember than stimuli symmetric along other axes, an advantage that extends to the haptic modality as well. Critically, the vertical symmetry memory advantage has not been found in early blind individuals, despite their overall superior memory, as compared with sighted individuals, and the presence of an overall advantage for identifying symmetric over asymmetric patterns. The absence of the vertical axis memory advantage in the early blind may depend on their total lack of visual experience or on the effect of prolonged visual deprivation.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) to schematic faces in adults and children.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 4-year-old 8-10-year-old children and adults to a schematic face, inverted face and jumbled face. The subjects were instructed to fixate the stimuli and no other response was required. The schematic face and inverted face were shown with a frequency of 20% each and the remaining presentations (60%) were of the jumbled face.

Aging and bilateral symmetry detection.

The salience of bilateral symmetry varies as a function of the orientation of the symmetry axis. Vertical symmetry is most salient, followed by horizontal and then oblique orientations. We tested symmetry detection in different age groups to determine whether performance of this intermediate-level visual task is affected by normal, nonpathological aging.